American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections       Summer 2025      ADVOCACY

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How TVIs Can Be "Blindness Ambassadors" for Families and Teachers

by Carol Castellano

From the Editor: For more than forty years Carol Castellano has been a mainstay of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC). She is a tireless advocate for blind children and their families in her home state of New Jersey and throughout the United States. Her books such as Making It Work: The Blind Child in the Mainstream Classroomand Getting Ready for College Begins in Third Gradeare classics in the literature of blindness education. In this article she draws upon her long experience to suggest ways for teachers of blind students to support parents and classroom teachers, helping blind and low-vision students reach their full potential.

I still remember the day two teachers of blind students showed up at our door to talk to me about the blind baby we had recently brought home from the hospital. I was almost afraid to let them in—somehow their visit felt like a step in making my baby’s blindness real. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go there yet.  

I did let them in, and to my relief, they were gentle and kind and spoke with downright enthusiasm about the many ways I would learn to play and interact with and have fun with my daughter. When I look back on this visit, I see that these teachers, the first people I met in the “blindness field,” had the unique opportunity to influence how I viewed blindness and even how I felt about my own daughter. TVIs really can be Blindness Ambassadors!

My daughter is a grown woman now, and over the years I have collected many ideas on ways that teachers of the blind can teach and support the families and classroom teachers with whom they work. In this article I would like to share some of these ideas, which I hope teachers will find helpful.

A New Understanding of Blindness

Chances are parents and classroom teachers new to blindness have some negative assumptions about blindness and the abilities of blind people. For example, they may think that blind people are helpless much of the time. TVIs have the opportunity to create a better understanding of blindness and to empower parents and teachers with knowledge of the skills and tools the blind child will learn and use to accomplish tasks. To create this new understanding, teachers can:

• Use positive language when referring to blindness/low vision and the abilities of blind/low-vision people. For example, instead of “She’s going to have to learn Braille,” the teacher can say, “I can’t wait to begin teaching her Braille, the great tool of literacy for blind kids.” Instead of saying, “He’ll have to use a cane,” try “Next time I’ll bring a cane along with me; it’s a great tool for independence.”
• Offer an alternative definition of blindness: Blindness simply means using different methods to accomplish tasks that sighted people usually perform using eyesight
• While acknowledging the feelings of loss a parent might experience, begin introducing new ideas—blindness is not a tragedy; it’s okay to be blind; blind people are regular people—they just happen to be blind
• Blindness doesn’t have to stop a person from achieving what he/she wants and living a normal life complete with family, friends, and community.

TVIs Can Provide Emotional Support

• Encourage the parents’ attachment to their child
• Help develop and support the parents’ feeling of competence and confidence in being able to bring up a blind/low-vision child; and the teachers feeling that they will have the ability to teach this child in the classroom
• Support the parents’ vision for their child
• Don’t worry about being “realistic” if you feel the parents are overly optimistic. If there’s really a problem, the parents will figure it out. Remember, it’s good to be hopeful and keep doors open
• If the parents are too negative, introduce them to successful blind people—college students in challenging majors, adults with interesting careers, blind parents. Help them realize that it’s okay to be blind
• Avoid negative generalities—“Blind children generally don’t…” or “They’re usually delayed about one year.” Instead, direct them to articles by parents and teachers full of ideas for development and stories of accomplishment. The magazines Future Reflections and Braille Monitor are great places to start
• Help parents who are looking for a cure to make sure their child is living and learning fully and successfully as a blind/low-vision person right now
• Help parents learn and advocate for what the child needs from early intervention and in school
• Get parents and teachers thinking in terms of the child’s independence and self-advocacy
• Connect families and teachers with the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children and our many resources.

TVIs Can Provide Information On…

• Typical expectations
• Development—how do we get there from here?
• Developmental areas
• Areas very important for a blind/low-vision child such as…
• Listening skills
• Tactile skills
• Body awareness
• Spatial awareness
• How to separate blindness out from additional disabilities and how to tell when additional help is needed
• The special skills the child will be learning, such as Braille, cane, and access technology
• Educational and development approaches for children with additional disabilities.

It’s important for teachers of the visually impaired to keep doors open for blind children with additional disabilities. TVIs can teach intervention ideas and techniques

• How to set up a stimulating home and classroom environment
• Ideas for play, concept development, self-help skills, participation in family and classroom life, socialization, life experiences
• How to encourage independent movement, curiosity, and exploration
• Language and thinking skills development
• How to create an environment for the development of literacy
• Help with avoiding pitfalls such as repetitive movements and inappropriate mannerisms
• The basics of Braille
• Information and tools so that parents can support the child’s education and provide ordinary help with homework, spelling, reports, projects, etc.

TVIs Can Provide Resources

• Resources in the community
• Parent support groups
• Connections with other classroom teachers
• Therapists, doctors, programs
• Sources for toys and games, educational aids, informational books, books for blind children, tactile graphics, materials for adapting items, ADL (activities of daily living) items.

TVIs Can Support the Use of Nonvisual Skills for Partially Sighted Children

• Don’t make a huge distinction between “blind” and “visually impaired” or “low vision”
• Don’t buy into—or sell—the attitude that “you’re so lucky your child isn’t blind” or “he won’t HAVE TO learn Braille” or “she won’t HAVE TO use a cane”
• Encourage partially sighted children to add nonvisual skills to their repertoire of techniques, as a complement to their residual vision
• Teach parents and teachers to encourage tactile skills as well as visual skills so that the child is empowered with full abilities and not limited to using only eyesight for getting things done; don’t let the child learn that he can only please Mom and Dad if he can see
• Inform parents and teachers of the research: Low-vision students who learn Braille “early and often” achieve literacy skills on a par with or above sighted peers; 80 percent of all employed blind and low-vision people are Braille users; low-vision people who embrace nonvisual skills have higher self-esteem, more confidence, and fuller lives
• Encourage the use of a cane for safe, efficient travel—low-vision people who are skilled, independent travelers use their eyesight for what they can see and their cane for what they can’t see
• Raise the question, does it make sense to ask a low-vision child who has 10 percent or less of normal vision to perform 100 percent of life’s tasks visually?

TVIs Can Teach Parents and Teachers to Beware of Sighted Bias

• The mistaken belief that using eyesight is superior to using tactile skills; the belief that eyesight is required to perform certain tasks
• The assumption that the “blinder” you are the more helpless (and hopeless) you are
• The assumption that every delay is due to blindness when maybe something else is going on
• Thinking—the goal is for the child to be “as independent as possible;” let’s say instead, for the child to be independent!
• Custodial attitude—the blind must be taken care of; they cannot make decisions about their own lives
• Assumptions about what life as a blind person must be like—difficult, confusing, frustrating, stressful, fatiguing, scary; these are only the beliefs of sighted people who do not know about or have not learned the skills and tools of blindness
• The belief that 80 percent of learning is visual—this is only true for sighted people! This attitude is out there! Question what you read!

TVIs Can Inform In-Service Classroom Teachers

• Raise their expectations! Tell them about successful blind adults
• Teach them to ask what they would expect if the child were not blind?
• The child needs to be a full, independent participant in all class activities—help the teacher plan out how this will come to pass
• The child needs to grow up to be an independent, competent, self-sufficient adult—help the school team look toward the future to plan for this outcome
• Teach teachers to question their assumptions about how much help is needed and what the child can and cannot do
• Teach classroom aides to avoid overprotection and learned dependence, and to work toward the student’s independent functioning
• Raise classroom teacher awareness of the skills and tools the child will learn and use
• Make sure classroom teachers let you know if they notice an area in which the student is not keeping up, so that you can teach the needed skill.
• Help ensure that materials are ready in accessible form when the student needs them
• Help school staff understand that progress must be made every year toward the child’s independent functioning; teach teachers to think about independence every day!
• Teach the teacher to ask, “Let’s find out how a blind person does this”
• Make sure blindness is never the reason a child does not take a course or participate in a class.

TVIs Can Connect Parents and Teachers with NOPBC and Other Sources For…

• Information, training, advocacy, support
• Future Reflections magazine
• The National Organization of Parents of Blind Children website (www.nopbc.org) and Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/nopbc/)
• Programs, activities, social and educational events for blind/low-vision children and their families and teachers
• Networking with other families & with blind/low-vision adults across the nation, who can serve as mentors, role models, and friends
• Access to the experience and resources of the 50,000 members of the National Federation of the Blind.

Teachers of the blind played a pivotal role in helping my daughter become the person she is today. I look back upon them with fondness, gratitude, and appreciation.

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